London Streets
by inkynails
Summary: Teenage AU in which Sherlock is kicked out of home and somehow manages to appear everywhere John is going. While John tries to juggle saving the homeless boy from his own run-away tounge and balancing the rest of his many issues at home and at uni, Sherlock is more focused on finding out some answers to questions no one asked. This is my first fic.


The first time John Watson saw the homeless kid wrapped in a heap of blankets in a doorway in front of his flat, he didn't click right away. Just shuffled past, tried not to meet his eyes and tried not to stare and felt that familiar stab of guilt that there was nothing he could really do to help. The kid scowled at him, and gave a hacking cough that seemed to split his skinny body in two. John winced. "You ok?" He asked before he could force himself to shut up.

Shuffling uncomfortably in his nest of what under closer inspection appeared to be several coats, the boy shot him a look trapped somewhere in between "what the fuck do you think?" and "fuck off and mind your own business." Then another cough ripped through him and his shoulders shook against the pain of his rasping throat and the sarcastic look wiped off his face. He looked young, about 16 or 17, with curly black hair that really looked like it needed a wash and cheekbones that could slice you in half so finely that you'd only notice you'd been cut an hour later when you looked down and realised your arms were no longer attatched. The gaze from his heavy-lidded eyes was just as sharp.

John frowned. "Are you ok?" He repeated. "Have you seen a doctor or something? That cough sounds pretty nasty."

The kid snorted. Coughed. "I'm fine," he rasped.

"Do you want some... um... strepsils or something?"

Eyes that weren't exactly a colour, not blue, not grey, not green but some combination of every colour blinked up at him twinged with irritation. "I'm fine. Stop annoying me." His voice had the air of a person being repeatedly herded by a sheep dog, despite having told them many times that they were not in fact a sheep.

John frowned. "I'm a medical student, I know when I hear someone with a worrying cough. Just..."

As if on cue, from inside the building there was a smashing sound and he bit his lip, his whiskey-brown eyes flicking up towards thir window and then back to the kid as if wondering if he had picked up on the noise. Harry. When she got into one of her bad ruts, she'd drink so so much, then get emotional and weepy and then angry. And that was when she started breaking things. She had always been a party girl, even back before the... accident. Now she wasn't so much a party girl as a 'drink yourself into a stupor in your bedroom on your own' girl. She'd got custody of him after the accident, as she was 24 by then and not in full time education or anything, and back then she'd had a regular normal job and she'd been in a steady relationship. Huh. Hadn't taken long for all of that to fall apart.

"Look, I've got to go," he told the kid apologetically.

The boy shrugged and burrowed deeper into his pile of coats. "Good good, run along."

It was only later that night, when Harry was finally passed out sobbing quietly on the sofa instead of screaming obscenities at him, that he remembered the kid out there in the cold of a london winter night. He looked out the window to try and catch a glimpse but the coats were gone. All he could do was hope that he'd be ok.

The next time he saw the kid, he was on the tube on his way home from a very unexciting party held by a girl... what was her name? Molly Hooper. Right. She'd been one of the few from his collage who'd come up to the same uni as him, and she was sweet enough but so painfully shy and quiet that her 'party' had involved a lot of drinking before anyone had even got up the nerve to talk to anyone else in the silent atmosphere. He didn't drink, and so surrounded by his utterly sloshed friends had not exactly been the best to spend his evening. He didn't really do parties either, prefering to revise and working any spare hours he could get. But just this once he had wanted to get away from it all, the constant flurry of exams and crappy night shifts at the co-op down the road. And honestly, he'd been worried about that kid. He couldn't have been that much younger than him, could he? It might have been weird, it wasn't exactly rare seeing people like him around london these days but this guy seemed so young, and sounded so very unsuited to roughing it in the middle of febuary. He had more the kind of voice for eton or something. Nice looking, John tried very hard not to think. That would have been weird. But the cheekbones had definitely made an impact because that's what he started calling the boy in his head. Cheekbones. Anyway. He leant on the glass partition thing and held onto one of the weird strappy things that hung from the ceiling. The train was almost empty, except for a couple of business men in suits and some younger guys blaring hip-hop out of their headphones and talking a little too loudly to be socially acceptable.

And... John stood up a little straighter, shocked. Was that..? Cheekbones, the kid from before, was dozing on one of the seats, tensed up against the window like he was scared of getting too close to anyone else. He looked just as grubby as he had the last time John had seen him, and the rattling in his throat had not eased. He was swaddled in about 4 coats, but John could still see a faint tremor in his hand like he was cold. Eyelashes butterflying slightly against his pointy cheekbones, he murmered something in his sleep and burrowed his nose into the crook of his shoulder. John almost crossed over to wake him up and talk to him, but he looked like he needed the sleep and besides he had completey shot down his attempt to help him. Which made no sense, by the way, because why would he not let someone help him when he clearly needed it? It's not like people were begging to help him left, right and centre, was it? He must have been pretty damn proud.

Outside of John's train of thought, the obnoxious group of guys had slouched their way down the carraige and taken up the seats next to and opposite the sleeping boy. Three of them, one in a baggy green hoodie, one with a stupid backwards cap and one wearing underwear that was much too visible above the waistband of his lowslung jeans. Their laughter and bawdy comments were starting to wake cheekbones, John noticed, and his eyes opened and he looked around a little bewildered like he had forgotten where he was.

The bratty guy on his side grinned lazily and tipped down his orange baseball cap. "What you lookin' at, freak?"

Rudely awoken, cheekbones scowled. "Well, whatever it is, it isn't a pretty picture," he croaked out in a suprisingly posh drawl, even more so than last time.

Orange-hat tensed up, and his friends followed his lead. "What did you just say to me?"

"I'm going to assume that you are not deaf or stupid, and simply say you heard me." Judging by the glances that the three sent each other, that was not the normal response of the people they tried to terrorise. Cheekbones took the hesitation as an invitation to continue talking and John tensed, hoping he wouldn't have to get involved. The kid hadn't seen him yet. He didn't want him thinking he'd got himself a stalker with a hero complex... "Picking on the homeless kid, I see?" A hacking cough cut him off for a moment before he carried on. "Combine that with your obvious smoking habit and your, um, promiscuous girlfriend and what can I say? How very attractive."  
"Did you just call me attractive, faggot?"  
"I was being sarcastic," he sighed, already seeming resigned to being punched and standing up as the train slowed down to pull into the station. John took a step closer too, worried.

"Fucking freak." The guy stood up, squaring up to him and bunching up his fists, drawing it back and...

"Dan? Oh, you're awake. Good. This is our stop." John walked over, trying to look purpousful. Cheekbones kid looked at him blankly for a second before his brain processed what was going on and relief and then worry flickered through his eyes in equal measure. "Come on. Mum's going to be waiting, you know what she's like. She'll call the police if we're ten seconds late." He gave a little laugh, hoping it didn't sound too shakey, and turned to walk away without checking if the other boy was following. He was, though. Treating orange-hat to a self satisfed grin, he smoothed down his many coats and followed John off the train.

"You didn't have to do that."  
"What, save you from getting your head kicked in? I sort of did."  
"Well." His voice sounded like a dying frog, and he said stiffly, "Thank you, anyway." They walked up the elevator and out into the cold street. This late, even in london it was quiet. Faintly in the distance someone was shouting and there was a police siren but there was no-one visible on the street. Weirdly peaceful, for once.

"You're welcome." John held out his hand. "Watson. John Watson."  
Cheekbones tilted his head at him, looked at his hand for several minutes before gingerly shaking it. His hands were so cold, John had to fight the urge to pull his hand back but he didn't, because that would be rude. The other boy must have noticed him tensing though because he looked down, almost blushing and muttered "Sorry..." He snatched his hand back, and John frowned.  
"If you're saying sorry for anything it should be your display in there! Are you trying to find your way into an early grave?" he scolded.

The other boy just shrugged. Abruptly, after a pause, he blurted out "You don't recognise me, do you?"

"I... you were near my flat. You bolted the moment I looked away..."

"No." He sounded a cross between disappointed and relieved. "Before that." And then he whirled round, gave a hacking cough that spoilt his dramatic exit and strode off on his long skinny legs.

John felt like he'd been hit by a demolition ball and he wasn't quite sure why. What on earth was that supposed to mean, before that? He shrugged quietly to himself. Weird kid. He'd think he was high except for the clarity of his eyes, and his speech was not slurred or anything. And he didn't get a name off him, either. Damn.

He still didn't figure it out, even then.

The third time he saw the kid, he was on his lunch break trying to eat and study for his next exam, sitting on a bench near his college. His 'sandwich' of bread and a little bit of i-can't-believe-it's-not-butter was not exactly michelin star cookery but they were running low on funds. Harry's jobseeker's allowance was running out and John was working every spare second he could at the co-op to get as much money as he could. He hadn't slept in days, working and studying and worrying. This was going to be his life now, and it wasn't great. Any time that he hadn't been doing that, he'd been thinking about cheekbones boy and worrying about him. It wasn't safe for a kid like that wandering around this city on his own. As well, after what he'd said... Before that. John thought about the pale blue eyes and the skinny pale face and the sunken cheeks and the curly black hair. He did recognise him, he knew it now he'd said. He just couldn't place him, at all.

He felt a weight slide into the seat next to him but he didn't look up from the page until he head the cough and then his eyes snapped up. Cheekbones was sat next to him, shivering dramatically and shrinking into his coat. He gave him a look, and smirked at his suprise. "Oh look, it's my stalker with a hero complex."  
"I very specifically hoped you didn't think that about me," John sighed with a smile in return. "Look, let me buy you a drink? Your cough is getting worse if anything."

"I'm fine." He said and then immedietly contradicted himself by choking on his words.

"I can tell. Come on."  
"You hardly have enough money to take care of yourself for god's sake, John. You can't take in every single stray that you see."

John flinched at that- he sounded so much like his mother. Time for a subject change, before he got all upset. "You remembered my name?" He teased.

Cheekbones pulled his eyebrows together and looked away.

"Um. Anyway." John cleared his throat in the suddenly awkward atmosphere. "How did you know his girlfriend was cheating on him, or that he was a smoker? Was that a random guess?"

The kid shrugged. "Deduction. It's easy." John just kept looking at him expectantly so he sighed and explained. "Yellow teeth and fingers from nicotine. He had lipgloss on his collar but he hadn't bothered to hide it so it was allowed to be there- it was acceptable, so it belonged to someone he was seeing. Whereas his friend had the same lipgloss on his neck but he'd made a concious effort to try and wipe it off. Ergo, he was getting cheated on."

John whistled. "Clever."

"Oh. Thank you." This earned him a real smile, the first one he'd got, followed by a splutter.

There was a pause. Still shivering, the kid pulled his coats tighter around him. He couldn't have been more than, what, 16? Too young for this, anyway. His fingers had gone white.

"Come here," John said, and suprised himself saying it. He reached out and took the kid's hands, rubbing them between his to warm them up. The younger boy's eyes widened a little in suprise but he let him gently massage the life back into them.

"Thank you..." He said again. It sounded like it hurt him to talk, every word a croak.

John caught a glance of his watch suddenly and leapt up. "Fuck, I'm due back in class in about an hour. Isn't there anywhere warm you can go?"

The kid rolled his eyes. "Nowhere that won't throw me out within 5 seconds. Look at me."

Awkwardly, he rocked on his feet back and forth, torn between attending his class and talking more to this guy. "Do you..."

"Go. Don't worry about me." He paused, his voice barely there. "Sherlock Holmes." With that, he dipped his head and sauntered off into the crowd.

John picked up his books and frowned.

And now he remembered him. Sherlock Holmes had been a few years below him back in school, a skinny little thing with no friends and a bad attitude towards the teachers. John had noticed him, of course, noticed him enough to tell a few of the kids he knew to back off him a bit when he saw them taking things too far. But that arrogant rich young gentleman (ha!) who could tear anyone to pieces with a few well-placed words and a pointed look was a few miles removed from the dangerously skinny, sickly boy he had just spoken to... God, it was terrible that he hadn't recognised him, wasn't it? Great. Now he felt guilty for it as well... He had to do something about this, he thought. Sherlock couldn't carry on like that.

When he got back to his flat that night, head spinning from the constant revision and feet aching from running through the aisles all day at work, Sherlock was honestly the last person he wanted to see- a conundrum wrapped in a puzzle that he did not have the energy to work out. His hands were full as he tried to juggle the bags containing enough groceries to last them the month (in case Harry tried to max out his credit card again in the search for enough booze to stop her from thinking, and therefore forced them to go without money for the rest of the month.) His round-ish bug-eye glasses were perched precariously on his nose, contributing heavily to his migraine because he wasn't meant to wear them except for reading. He was tired, so tired. Never mind bags under the eyes, it felt like he had bloody shopping carts.

All he wanted to do was sit down and have a cup of tea and hope to hell that Harry wasn't home.

However. Sherlock holmes may have been the last person he wanted to see but he was also the one person he did happen to see, slumped over, doubled up in the sheltered bit in front of the flat's entrance. He was in a bad way, a bruise spreading over his arched cheekbone and a shallow cut decorating his eyebrow. Paperlike, his skin was almost translucent in the glow of the lamplight.

Every breath he heaved in sounded painful- John's eyebrows furrowed in concern. Dropping his bag of groceries to kneel beside him, he nudged his shoulder. "Sherlock? Wake up."  
Sherlock's eyes cracked open, a fevered look to them, and he blinked at the harsh light of the street lamps. It was a cold night, every breath punctuated with a puff of steam. "Wha..?"

"Ok, Sherlock? I don't think you're very well. What on earth happened to you?"

He meant it rhetorically, but Sherlock huffed indignantly. "I fainted," he muttered. "Obviously."

John pressed a hand to his forehead, then put a thumb against his cheek to examine his eyes, and the younger boy swatted at him irritably and then lost his balance, careening over to one side and pressing his face against the smooth concrete wall. "You've got a pretty bad fever running, you shouldn't be out on the street like this. I mean you shouldn't be out on the street at all, but I mean-" He was getting worried. He repeated himself a lot when he was worried. "Come on, you're coming inside."

"I'm fine. Piss off... John?" His face was a picture of confusion- he let himself stumble to his feet and almost toppled over immedietly, John throwing out an arm to catch him. "What are you doing here?"

John half sighed and half groaned, scrubbing the arm that wasn't supporting the clearly delirious teenager through his messy hair. "I live here."

Sherlock coughed again, eyes rolling in his head, and John looked around nervously.

"For god's sake... Quieten down, ok? I can't let Harry know you're in here, so you'll have to stay in my room. I'll have the floor, you can have my bed..." Sherlock gave a stuttery cough and wobbled upright, taking a few baby steps forward before stumbling this time. John caught him again and he gave a sleepy mumble, looking confusedly around himself. "John..." He said again. "You're here." Then he smiled, a little too happy to be sane given the circumstances. Ok, so now he was just getting dangerously feverish. He didn't seem to know where he was. But he'd seemed ok earlier... John bit his lip. "C'mon."

Inside, the stairwell smelled of urine and cigarette smoke and as always John heaved a huge breath into his lungs before he started the acent, in an attempt to inhale as little of the foul air as possible. Sherlock wasn't heavy, scarily light actually, and he could juggle him and the few groceries he had been able to afford pretty easily. He was muttering to himself bewilderedly, coughing pathetically occasionally. "It hurts," he grumbled, like a kid withheld candy, before his eyes slid shut and didn't open again. John manouvered him into his room and pushed him down onto the bed, tugging the cover over him. "Stay there." He murmered and crossed into the kitchen to put his shopping on the floor, and to grab a glass of water and a packet of the antibiotics from a few days ago. He popped two out of their bubble packet and crossed back through the hall to his bedroom, listening out for the familiar sound of clanking bottles in his sister's room. It hadn't been easy, learning to not interfere. She was his sister, after all, and he adored her, but the more he pushed her towards rehab (that they couldn't afford) or therapy (which she would hate) the further into her drinking she would sink. In his room, Sherlock was starfishing out in his bed, relishing the warmth even in his unconcious state. "Ok, Sherlock? I'm going to need you to wake up for a moment. You need to take these, to make you all better."  
Sherlock cracked an eye open, then groaned at the light in the room and closed it again, but John persisted in jogging his arm and eventually he opened his eyes fully. "No. Piss off."

"Sherlock," he sighed.

Sherlock smushed his face in the pillow. His speech was slurred with tiredness and delarium, accentuating his (in John's opinion) ridiculous posh accent. "Fine."

"Really?"  
"No. Piss off."

John sighed exasperatedly in a puff of air that made his fringe flip up, and flopped onto the chair beside the bed. He glared as Sherlock snuggled further into his blankets, his dirty parka coat still swaddling him like a new baby. A moment later he let out an unattractively loud snore. The other boy groaned, and pushed his glasses higher up his nose, slumping in his seat.

Now what was he meant to do?


End file.
